Sub Terra Vita: Earth to Tolley(?): Commending a Count Down
Sub Terra Vita
September 11, 2010
By Scipio Cepiacanus
Earth to Tolley(?): Commending a Count Down
[Foreward—My Apologies]. It happened four or five months ago and I barely remember it. Looking through some old notes I found in my sketch journal, trying like the soon-to-be 40 year detective in the mysteries of my own recent life, I look intense at the journal to formulate some answers to nag-nag questions. Who were they? From where did they come? What did their faces look like? What did they wear? I failed to record these facts, as I would want to know some of these personal and personality details when writing. After all, life in the St. Croix Valley underground depends, for me, on developing something concrete in memory. According to my notes the band impressed the hell of out of me. Beyond impressions of their music, only the answers to the above questions could make it real enough for me to relate some things better to a reader. Sonofabitch, I had hoped that what older people told me when I turned twenty or 25 years old would never happen to me: That aging, or overworked minds, or just plain wear and fear of thinking longer, does no good service to a person's memory. In seeing the band Earth to Tolley, I at least have some notes in a scribble book. [Yours Truly, Scipio Cepiacanus].
I arrived too late on a spring Saturday night at Acquaria's Den Haus to see my good friends play in their band, Wisco. As always before smoking permanently moved outdoors by law later that upcoming summer, Den Haus's tavern room filled with a low fog of dense cigarette smoke.
The Earth to Tolley show started, and I thought, like a flight director prompt, “Earth to Tolley. . . Earth to Tolley. . . BLAST OFF!!” The music, as my notes say, took my mood onto an acid-sound noodle groove, the music reminding me of wilder days when all the other people took their Hits, and I didn't need one because those “other” people could never catch up to the trips I left behind.
Without need for embellishing from my cleared and cleaned mind, I wondered if any one in the tavern would need intoxication as Earth to Tolley took eclectic music mind-melding sky high to Jupiter's moons. Mr. Spock would have gone nuts on such logic as Earth to Tolley drove their jet-hot rocket up and away, in a group playing tighter than a “Type C” Grunge Machine suit.
As could be said, beer before this sort of music trip could make one dizzy in a vertigo loop space Disneyland-plunge from the low arc of Sky Lab's last spin around our planet before its burned out crash. Heavens to Mergatroid—that was more than 30 years ago. “Earth to Tolley. . .Earth to Tolley. . . You're cleared for space walk.”
“Use Me Up!” they sang and rammed the jam on electrified sounds. A Rolling Stones cover song everyone knew, “You Can't Always Get What You Want,” welded into “Feeling Alright.” The songs, Earth to Tolley's songs, both covers and ones I'd never heard anywhere before, had grunge post-pop flash, a WOW-WA SHAAZAM(!!!), with a little skiddle bob-bop. Unique in their way, Earth to Tolley brought some new form of music life to a cultural oasis out here on Pluto's limb of the Metro entertainment solar system. Acquaria's place in the cool-spots-to-play gets even better by reputation, as Earth to Tolley played. For all that the big cities know, out and up here it gets cold and dark eight months out of the year. But in our Sub Terra Vita, our life Underground in the St. Croix Valley, nights become lightened and warmed when sun eclipses by dark to the sheer energy of a good living through great art. “Who said you can't get what you want?” I ask.“Oh, excuse me, Big Culture did. Right?”
So when rebuffed in the sub-real, the reality goes sur-real, and then it gets back to the music, back into the seeded soil of fun. And we, Captain Kirk, serve as Star Fleet space cadets in this intergalactic tone warp. “Bring us there, Earth to Tolley.” And at least they abducted me into the off world colony of their songs.
“Earth to Tolley. . . Earth to Tolley. . . spin up the candle and let's take her for a ride. Second star out, then turn left.”
Like sailing on a sober solar orbit comet's tail ice amidst a bright shimmering music of stars, bars and twittering funk heat, the band's staccato stellar space scape measures their beat. The good souls in us appeal for the pleasure of company we know not how to meet. Yet we still call ourselves neighbors, on earth or perhaps elsewhere in the future. The less formal thrills in my mind at Den Haus that spring Saturday evening allowed me to shake Polaris's hand as I glide past that north star, and then I roll rift-right on a Milky Way wave ride back through the Saturn ring express, destination home here in the Valley.
Earth to Tolley made a universal good time that night, that felt right, right then. I only regret. . .one thing. . .
THAT I WISH I COULD REMEMBER IT HAPPENING WITHOUT MY NOTES!!!!
Copyright © 2010 The Cepia Club LLC. All rights reserved.
September 11, 2010
By Scipio Cepiacanus
Earth to Tolley(?): Commending a Count Down
[Foreward—My Apologies]. It happened four or five months ago and I barely remember it. Looking through some old notes I found in my sketch journal, trying like the soon-to-be 40 year detective in the mysteries of my own recent life, I look intense at the journal to formulate some answers to nag-nag questions. Who were they? From where did they come? What did their faces look like? What did they wear? I failed to record these facts, as I would want to know some of these personal and personality details when writing. After all, life in the St. Croix Valley underground depends, for me, on developing something concrete in memory. According to my notes the band impressed the hell of out of me. Beyond impressions of their music, only the answers to the above questions could make it real enough for me to relate some things better to a reader. Sonofabitch, I had hoped that what older people told me when I turned twenty or 25 years old would never happen to me: That aging, or overworked minds, or just plain wear and fear of thinking longer, does no good service to a person's memory. In seeing the band Earth to Tolley, I at least have some notes in a scribble book. [Yours Truly, Scipio Cepiacanus].
I arrived too late on a spring Saturday night at Acquaria's Den Haus to see my good friends play in their band, Wisco. As always before smoking permanently moved outdoors by law later that upcoming summer, Den Haus's tavern room filled with a low fog of dense cigarette smoke.
The Earth to Tolley show started, and I thought, like a flight director prompt, “Earth to Tolley. . . Earth to Tolley. . . BLAST OFF!!” The music, as my notes say, took my mood onto an acid-sound noodle groove, the music reminding me of wilder days when all the other people took their Hits, and I didn't need one because those “other” people could never catch up to the trips I left behind.
Without need for embellishing from my cleared and cleaned mind, I wondered if any one in the tavern would need intoxication as Earth to Tolley took eclectic music mind-melding sky high to Jupiter's moons. Mr. Spock would have gone nuts on such logic as Earth to Tolley drove their jet-hot rocket up and away, in a group playing tighter than a “Type C” Grunge Machine suit.
As could be said, beer before this sort of music trip could make one dizzy in a vertigo loop space Disneyland-plunge from the low arc of Sky Lab's last spin around our planet before its burned out crash. Heavens to Mergatroid—that was more than 30 years ago. “Earth to Tolley. . .Earth to Tolley. . . You're cleared for space walk.”
“Use Me Up!” they sang and rammed the jam on electrified sounds. A Rolling Stones cover song everyone knew, “You Can't Always Get What You Want,” welded into “Feeling Alright.” The songs, Earth to Tolley's songs, both covers and ones I'd never heard anywhere before, had grunge post-pop flash, a WOW-WA SHAAZAM(!!!), with a little skiddle bob-bop. Unique in their way, Earth to Tolley brought some new form of music life to a cultural oasis out here on Pluto's limb of the Metro entertainment solar system. Acquaria's place in the cool-spots-to-play gets even better by reputation, as Earth to Tolley played. For all that the big cities know, out and up here it gets cold and dark eight months out of the year. But in our Sub Terra Vita, our life Underground in the St. Croix Valley, nights become lightened and warmed when sun eclipses by dark to the sheer energy of a good living through great art. “Who said you can't get what you want?” I ask.“Oh, excuse me, Big Culture did. Right?”
So when rebuffed in the sub-real, the reality goes sur-real, and then it gets back to the music, back into the seeded soil of fun. And we, Captain Kirk, serve as Star Fleet space cadets in this intergalactic tone warp. “Bring us there, Earth to Tolley.” And at least they abducted me into the off world colony of their songs.
“Earth to Tolley. . . Earth to Tolley. . . spin up the candle and let's take her for a ride. Second star out, then turn left.”
Like sailing on a sober solar orbit comet's tail ice amidst a bright shimmering music of stars, bars and twittering funk heat, the band's staccato stellar space scape measures their beat. The good souls in us appeal for the pleasure of company we know not how to meet. Yet we still call ourselves neighbors, on earth or perhaps elsewhere in the future. The less formal thrills in my mind at Den Haus that spring Saturday evening allowed me to shake Polaris's hand as I glide past that north star, and then I roll rift-right on a Milky Way wave ride back through the Saturn ring express, destination home here in the Valley.
Earth to Tolley made a universal good time that night, that felt right, right then. I only regret. . .one thing. . .
THAT I WISH I COULD REMEMBER IT HAPPENING WITHOUT MY NOTES!!!!
Copyright © 2010 The Cepia Club LLC. All rights reserved.
posted by Scipio Cepicanus @ 10:48 PM
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